Rebel with A Cause

I was on my way for dinner at a friend's house. On my way there I began to notice (I'm not exactly sure why just now) the numerous street signs that I passed by. We all do almost every day. You had the 65 MPH speed limit. The no U-turn signs. The stop sign of course. The yield signs. The you-are-1/4 mile- away from your exit warning and all sorts of other warnings and signs. All these rules and guidelines I have no qualms are what makes our travel possible and un-chaotic. And our society surely cannot afford not to have it.

But I couldn't help but wonder. As we were born into this world of rules and guidelines, one inevitable truth I could not escape; from our street signs to our school system to our friends growing up (and to our present friends for that matter), to the expectations of people of us- aren't majority of us influenced one way or another to follow the norm? to bask in uniformity?To follow the herd.

The question I dare myself to pose is this: could this 'set of rules' that one way or another urges us to all act the same-be uniformed in our ways. Could this be the foundation for our inclination to almost always go the way to what is already well-accepted?To take the road most traveled? why it's always easier to do what everyone else is doing. And on the other hand why it is so difficult to do something when everyone is doing the opposite.

And being under that umbrella for most of our lives, could it be that we have adopted this way of doing things with the way we invest? It seems to me that it has.

History is the star witness; from the California real estate recession in the late 80's to the tech bubble of 2000 to our current real estate depression-like status to the great depression of 1929. To quote the painfully true cliche,'history has repeated itself'.

Would it be fair to conclude that human nature hasn't changed even after seeing all these financial tragedies? And if so, it does not make sense to me to expect a result other than what we've had...

' your system is perfectly designed to produce that result that you are getting'.

How then can we expect to do otherwise? to make smarter,courageous investment decisions? after all we were already born into this world that has unceasingly told us to be this way- to think the same. Pardon me for I do not have a a one size fits all solution. But being aware of our current situation, the tendencies of our human nature, being aware of this and being honest enough to acknowledge it is I believe winning half the battle...

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